Introduction

Forms are the primary
means through which
applications accept user input. They are used for a wide variety of
purposes, such as gathering user information, performing searches,
and placing orders for products and services. But whatever the
purpose of a specific form, they all share several common features:

A form is composed
of
input text fields, menus, checkboxes,
radio buttons, push buttons, and possibly other
custom
control types such as sliders, dials, calendars, and even images.

A form submits data to be
processed further, often by a
server-side script.

Many forms validate their data
before submitting it for
processing to ensure that all necessary information has been entered
properly.

A form may be limited to one page (screen) or be spread across
several pages, depending on its length and appropriate user
considerations.

ActionScript provides text
fields
as well as standard UI components for creating the elements of a
form, but it does not provide a native Form
class to manage the user input process or the form as a whole.
However, this chapter includes recipes that enable you to create and
utilize forms effectively in your Flash movies. These recipes extend
the functionality of existing UI components, define a
Form class, and define a
MultiPageForm class. You should place all of
this code in a Form.as file and save it to your
Flash Include directory so that you can reuse
the code easily in your applications.